1. Field of the Invention
There are approximately 1 million operations performed annually in the US on the male genital organs. About 500,000 of these operations are vasectomies, and many of the remaining procedures are associated with the treatment of hydroceles, spermatoceles, varicoceles, inguinal hernia repair, injury from trauma and cancer. (See CDC document; Advanced Data No. 385-Jul. 12, 2007; Vasectomy in the United States, J. Urology, 176: 232-36 (2002); incorporated by reference.)
Frequently, complications from scrotal surgery result in post-operative pain, hemorrhage, swelling, bruising, inflammation and epididymitis/orchitis. Efforts aimed at mitigating these post-operative complications include: prescribing analgesics, applying cold compresses to the painful area, if possible, and immobilizing the patient.
The preferred approach is to minimize the use of narcotic drugs and apply cold compresses to the affected area. However, although the therapeutic effects of cold compresses are well known, it is especially difficult to apply cold compresses to the swollen scrotal area due to its anatomical location, shape, and size. Thus, for example, if either ice, water bags, or freezer “blue ice” packs are used, they generally can only be placed on top of the penis area and are therefore only partially in contact with the painful scrotal area. Furthermore, whereas the application of pressure to cold compresses is known to enhance the soothing effect, pressure is even harder to apply to the swollen scrotal area. There is therefore a need for a post-operative or post-trauma method designed to effectively apply a combination of both cold compresses and pressure directly to the affected scrotal area so as to relieve post-operative pain and swelling.
Furthermore, since patients undergoing these surgical procedures are generally supine and may still be unconscious, it is important that the new methodology be easy to apply without requiring the physical lifting of patient's lower torso.
Finally, since both the size of the patient and the swollen male scrota may vary, it is essential that any new methodology be able to be adjusted for these variations.
There are also many other operations performed in the pelvic area (for example, haemorroidectomies, episiotomies, circumcisions, hysterectomies) that result in post-operative pain, hemorrhage, swelling, bruising, and inflammation. Mitigation of these post operative conditions similarly include prescribing analgesic drugs, applying cold compresses to the painful area and patient immobility. Applying cold compresses is preferred if possible, but unfortunately are difficult to apply to the affected area due to the anatomy of the pelvic area. There is therefore a need for a method to overcome this problem.
As opposed to surgical trauma, there are also many sports inflicted injuries of the pelvic area that can result in pain, hemorrhage, swelling, bruising, and inflammation. Whereas it is generally recognized that cooling of the injured area is effective in reducing pain and swelling, prior art devices have all suffered from similar problems of difficult contact application due to the anatomical shape of the pelvic area. Clearly variations of the inventions disclosed above overcome these application problems and as such would provide substantially improved pain relief for sports inflicted injuries of the pelvic area.
2. Description of Related Art
U.S. Pat. No. 6,068,607 describes a “Cold Compress for Human Genitalia.” The invention describes a cold compress adapted for applying cooling effect to the human genitalia. The device includes a holder that can fit around the waist of a human having a pouch for holding a cooling member, which has a plurality of tubes to hold the cold medium. This device, like the one described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,243,974 places the cold compress directly onto the penis area, and as such, is not very effective in contacting the swollen scrotal area.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,243,974 covers a “Cold Treatment Athletic Support” which has a pouch into which a “blue-ice” freezer pack can be inserted. The pouch is in front of the athletic support, and as such, the cold pack is largely in contact with the penis rather than the swollen testicles.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,716,319 describes a “Method of Delaying Ejaculation During Sexual Intercourse.” The device described in this patent is a bag positioned around the testicles with a cooled upper portion. Contact with the testicles is fairly loose and the bag is supported by a strap that passes over the erect penis. Clearly, this device does not press and hold a cold compress against entire length of the testicles (swollen or otherwise).
U.S. Pat. No. 6,254,613 describes a “Thermal Compress for Appendage and Method of Treating Appendage with Thermal Compress.” This patent covers an apparatus and method for the therapeutic treatment of an elongated protruding body part. The patent is particularly directed at numbing an infant's, adolescent's, or adult's penis prior to or after circumcision. Once again there is no mention of application of cooling to swollen testicles.